“Addiction doesn’t discriminate – it’s all walks of life. I think people still don’t grasp that concept.”

Pamela Knight knows from experience.

The 53-year-old mother of three spent years battling a near-fatal drug addiction – and so did her 24-year-old son.

Life spiraled so far out of control for this family that, at many times, Pamela couldn’t see the light.

But things weren’t always so dark.

“I grew up in an intact family,” Pamela says. “We were half Italian, half Russian and very close-knit. I was put on a pedestal at an early age – but I always felt the need to please.”

Years later, though, when she went to middle school, the tables started turning – and Pamela began her descent into a black hole from which she almost didn’t escape.

'I was always someone to try new things - and I loved it'

In 7th grade, she moved to a new school – and it was “pretty traumatic,” in her words.

“People judged me,” Pamela explains. “I looked like I was 16, but mentally, I was 11. Guys made comments, girls taunted me … I pretty much shut down.”

Pamela Knight with her husband, Daniel, and son, Connor.(Photo: COURTESY OF PAMELA KNIGHT)

Throughout high school, she remained a perfect student but started drinking heavily. At 20, Pamela got married and had her first child, Loren.

“Eighteen months later,” she says, “I had my son Daniel. I was a stay-at-home mom. A few years after that, somebody introduced me to cocaine. I was always someone to try new things – and I loved it.”

Pamela says she partied on the weekends – but things were manageable.

In 1993, her second son, Connor, was born. And six years later, the situation spun completely out of control.

“He’s the one who struggles today,” she says. “When he was 6 or 7, I was watching him play football. I fell off the bleachers and hurt my back pretty bad, so the doctor prescribed me Vicodin. The first time I took it, I felt like Superwoman. I loved it. Then when I was done healing, I kind of always wanted it, so I played the system. I went to doctors, dentists – there’s a point where you say ‘I have to stop,’ but you go through withdrawal … it’s horrible.”

Shortly thereafter, Pamela was introduced to Percocet, which she calls “the blue Devil.”

“My justification was that it was a 30 mg pill with no Tylenol, and it won’t hurt my liver,” she explains. “But now, I couldn’t stop. I was getting them on the streets … I was fine on the surface, but I was withdrawing from my life.”

Eventually, Pamela got to the point where she was just using to be “normal.” She crushed the pills, counted them constantly, and missed family functions when she knew she was running out.

“The time and energy I spent,” Pamela reflects, “When I needed a quick buzz, I took cough syrup with Oxycodone. I would take so much that I would get sick, and I didn’t even care. But that’s my past. I can’t live there.”

She hid her addiction for the next 14 years. It wasn’t until January 2013 that her family started getting suspicious.

'It felt like time stopped'

“I was the dumbest drug addict out there,” Pamela says. “I looked like crap in pictures, I was nodding off. But I decided I was going to quit.”

She downed NyQuil and Tylenol PM, and suffered from horrible withdrawal.

Pamela Knight with her daughter, Loren.(Photo: COURTESY OF PAM KNIGHT)

“My brain was going crazy,” Pamela says. “I was thinking, ‘I can’t do this.’ If I could have jumped out of my body, I would have.”

A couple days later, she was ready to give up.

“I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna start the insanity all over.’ My daughter came over, and she was suspicious,” Pamela recalls. “Finally, I told her, ‘I’m addicted to pain pills.’ And it felt like time stopped. All the shame and guilt came out.”

The family rallied, discussed treatment – and she agreed to get help.

“My whole family was there,” Pamela says. “I could see the fear in their eyes. But I felt free, like a weight was lifted from me.”

She immediately headed to a facility in Florida – but a flight delay almost sent her back home.

“I was so sick, I was in a wheelchair in the airport,” Pamela says. “I wanted to come back, but my daughter wouldn’t let me. My phone was blowing up with words of encouragement, and I couldn’t even look at it – I felt so unworthy.”

She arrived in Florida on a rainy day. They went through her suitcase, checked her body to see if she was hiding any drugs and put her in detox.

“I was thinking, ‘I don’t belong here,’ ” Pamela says. “I felt like I was thrown into a society that I didn’t belong to – but I did.”

It was hard to admit – but she was determined to try.

'You just hit another rock bottom ... you have nothing left but your sobriety'

After working the program and processing all her trauma with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) psychotherapy, Pamela was starting to see the light.

She earned 100 days of sobriety, and from the outside, things seemed to be looking up.

Pamela Knight and her son, Connor.(Photo: COURTESY OF PAMELA KNIGHT)

But at home, life was falling apart.

“My husband called me,” Pamela says, “and he was supposed to come down to visit. But things weren’t good at the time … and I was having an affair.”

While waiting for him to arrive, a car pulled up, and a man emerged with a huge floral arrangement.

Pamela’s husband had hired a private detective.

“He got out of the car, handed me the flowers and said, ‘good luck,’ ” she recalls. “I walked down to the beach and called my husband. He told me he was already there, and we had an explosion. He had pictures from the affair, and I still denied it.”

Pamela’s husband urged her to leave treatment and go home with him, but she knew that could have dangerous consequences.

I am not an addict. But try and love one, and tell me that you didn't get addicted to trying to fix them.
Wochit

Three months later, Pamela returned home. She's been down a “hell of a road” since then, but today, she and her husband continue to work on their marriage.

Many of her other relationships started to mend, and she returned to her job in special education.

“And that’s where I discovered the magic between a suffering addict and a recovering addict,” she says. “Teachers were coming up to me, sharing their stories and asking me for help.”

In 2015, Pamela became a certified drug interventionist.

She’s dedicated her life to helping others, however, it’s a constant struggle to keep herself on the right track.

A mother's worst nightmare

“Someone told me that we – addicts – are very impulsive people,” Pamela says. “We don’t think, we just do. But we have to take a few moments to play it through first. My sister was in an accident, for example, and I picked up the bottle of her pain pills and started shaking. Right away, I left, and cried the whole way home, over the fact that it still had a grip on me. But my sponsor said, ‘Maybe you needed that to show that the old Pam was gone.’ Now, I’m present. I’m talking to you right now, and I’m not thinking about tomorrow. Young adults, they do too much thinking, about where they should be in life. Let it go … turn that pain into purpose.”

Pamela Knight and her son, Connor.(Photo: COURTESY OF PAM KNIGHT)

For Pamela, those words hit very close to home.

At 17, her son, Connor, was injured in football, and within a few years, he was a full-blown drug addict.

“He had serious back surgery,” Pamela says, “and he was taking pain pills. He eventually wound up snorting heroin … in winter 2016, I found him unconscious – and he was barely breathing.

Connor was admitted to a psychiatric ward, where he was prescribed Xanax. The next day, Pamela says, he was back in “addict mode.”

“I said to him, ‘Connor, do you want to die?’ ” she recalls. “I set an ultimatum for him. Pack a bag, and go to treatment – or you’re done. I wasn’t gonna let him die on my watch or in my house.”

Connor obliged – and today, he’s been clean for almost two years.

“When I see his name on my phone,” Pamela says, “I still get that feeling of, oh s*** … your whole set of expectations change. When I say baby steps … you know what I mean.”

Like his mother, Connor wants to work with other addicts to help turn their lives around. Because, as Pamela says, recovery is a beautiful thing.

“Recovery,” she says, “we don’t talk about it much. But it’s the gift of life. We get labeled – once an addict, always an addict. But we go back into society, and we do great things. Helping people keeps me sober … it’s a win-win.”